Comment: Universities Failing Students

The education sector in Iraq, like all other sectors, was completely neglected by the regime of Saddam Hussein, from primary school right up to higher education. Corruption was rampant.

Here in Najaf, a schoolteacher, notorious for accepting bribes, owns a 600-square-metre house of his own in one of the city’s most modern areas and drives a luxury saloon car, while a headmaster, known for his honesty, has been forced to sell the doors and windows of his house, replacing them with curtains, in order to make ends meet.

In universities, under Saddam’s Ba’ath party, it was not uncommon for supervisors to write students’ theses in return for payment. Many of those teaching no longer care about their work - they’re only interested in making money off their students.

Standards have plummeted in the generation since I was a student. My son, a second-year engineering student, can barely string a sentence together in English - even though it is the medium of instruction in his higher education establishment. My command of English is better than his, and my education progressed no further than secondary school level.

Today, Iraq is supposed to be entering a period of reconstruction. Yet we are not told what is planned. In the sector of higher education, Iraqis require the following.

Universities should be: totally independent and free from the interference of any politician or political party; housed in suitable buildings and equipped with decent classrooms, laboratories, new instruments and new books - textbooks, magazines and scientific journals.

There should be connections to and relations with foreign universities, both in terms of research and exchange visits.

Students should be able to transfer to campuses close to their homes to lessen the economic burden on their families. Those whose specialist subjects are not catered for by their local universities should be accommodated in dormitories at ones that provide the courses they want to take.

Corruption should be systematically eliminated from all aspects of university life, especially from teaching.

Iraqi intellectuals should be encouraged to return to Iraq and should be given all possible facilities to make a university career attractive to them.

If nothing is done, and higher education remains as it is, the reconstruction of Iraq will be the preserve of foreigners and Iraqi exiles. Those most concerned by reconstruction - the millions of Iraqis who suffered under Saddam Hussein - will be forced to stand on the sidelines and watch.

But if these requirements are met, Iraq’s university students will once again graduate with a degree that means something. They will be open-minded and in touch with the wider world. Then, and only then, will they be able to play a part in the reconstruction of their own country.

Zaki Yahya is a resident of Najaf.